HoneyBabyyyyy + The Eclipse + The New Detroit Sign + RIP Roberto Cavalli + Annie Lennox + Iran, et al + Morgan Wallen For Prison + Boeing Burn Book + Coachella Campers > Influencers
I’m back from my maternity leave (I adopted a dog last week) and am happy to report that mommy and baby are doing just fine.*
*(the dog has a tapeworm that’s been coming out in pieces for the last week, the segments of it still movinggggggggggggggggggg)
*(she bit the vet on Thursday and had to be muzzled…and got a prescription for Trazedone)
*(she caught her tail in the patio door and everything in my apt under the 7ft mark is covered in blood splatter because she thought me chasing her around to try to stop the bleeding was a fun game. Her tail hath wag-ged my home into an episode of Dexter. The TV screen, bathroom tile, windows, every floor board, every run and rise of the staircase, every wall, the concrete outside, my headboard, my white couch… everything)
Anyway, as I type this she’s sitting under a blanket I heated up for her in the dryer. I’m going to have to budget for a towel warmer… on top of the new couch I now need to buy, and the thousands of dollars for Bad Girl Puppy School tuition I’ll be spending.
Her new name is Honey (former shelter name Riley, former real name ????), and she’s perfect.
Last issue, I gave a quick update on the never-ending stream of corruption happening in LA City, including a $400M budget deficit Mayor Bass is trying to close by 1) not being transparently audited for her own spending and 2) cutting already underfunded city services including parks, street services and repair, and the understaffed and over-crowded L.A. Animal Services.
(LAPD, of course, will not be getting their budget cut, ensuring 12 cops and a helicopter can show up to arrest two TikTokers protesting outside of Scientology’s favorite restaurant, Los Feliz’s La Poubelle.)
Anyway, as heart wrenching Honey’s viral abandonment video was when it hit my FYP, I was already stewing with more hatred for L.A. City than I could ever throw at the kids who abandoned her. L.A. is a city failed by decisions, not by funding. We are a city that could house and feed every person and animal, in thrive-able conditions that don’t compromise their health and safety, that ease transition and encourage rehabilitation and re-entry. These are the resources that we pay for, and they do not at all currently operate functionally those who need them, and most likely will not operate for us, should our future selves ever need them. “High kill” — a certain death — is the only trackable, consistent result of both L.A. City’s human and animal shelter programs.
Honey was in a single kennel with three other dogs, at an unfortunately high kill shelter. I adopted her without petting her. She was too skittish to come near me and too overwhelmed by every noise, bark, door slam, and footstep in the North Central Animal Shelter lobby. Just from walking out of the shelter, she became a completely different dog from the one I first met met. She needed silence and sleep, and only 3 days later (as post-spay anesthesia fully wore off), she thawed back to a playful puppy who is super eager to show you she knows how to sit for treats, and has zero interest in learning what the word “no” means.
The truth is, even if she’d already been adopted out by the time I got there, I was leaving there with something.
Happy Sunday —
“Wind blow too hard fuck around and knock this shit down”- G’Mac Cash (TikTok)
OJ Simpson Dies At 76 (Variety)
Jonathan Majors Gets Probation (LA Times)
RIP Showtime Streaming (The Verge)
…Or, The Fashion Industry Could Just Hire Diverse Human Models (AP)
Paris’ Pre-Olympic Problem: The Seine’s Toilet Bowl Era (CBS)
The Schappell Twins — Reading, PA’s Biggest Stars — Go Off to Heaven (USA Today)
A sad day for Mob wives and generally all lovers of giraffe, zebra, python, leopard, gator, and gold. Fashion Designer Roberto Cavalli passed away Friday at the age of 84. (W)
“It's got to the point now where the whole world is looking at this with such horror.” — Annie Lennox
The Scottish queen is one of several celebrities who’ve donated their time and memorabilia to Cinema For Gaza’s auction in support of MAP (Medical Aid for Palestinians).
The latest auction lots include a signed and framed Malcolm X poster offered by Spike Lee and Paul Mescal donating a signed Aftersun poster. On the experiences side, actress Tessa Thompson is offering to have a beer (or an “O’Douls”) over Zoom with a winning bidder, and Shiva Baby director Emma Seligman will shoot the breeze over tea, again via a Zoom call.
There’s also a Zoom call with Ayo Edebiri, star of The Bear, who is tossing in a list of her favorite places to dine, and a walk-on part in director Gurinder Chadha’s next film. More on The Hollywood Reporter.
Lennox’s handwritten lyrics to Sweet Dreams raised just under $10,000. Jonathan Glazer joined the effort, donating seven signed Zone of Interest posters to the lot. So far, over $300,000 has been raised.
The auction closed Friday, but you can still make a one-time donation here.
Anyway, more from this week...
So, Iran, Yemen, Syria, and Lebanon *also* have the right to defend themselves?
What would an election debate actually do at this point. Really...
After the murder of World Central Kitchen volunteers, Israel continues to target aid workers
Lock Him Up! — The Venn diagram of Morgan Wallen fans and women who would’ve brought their children to watch lynchings is simply one single flat circle. This week, Wallen was charged with three counts of felony reckless endangerment for throwing a chair off of a sixth floor bar balcony in Nashville.
He’s currently out free on bail because…well, you know.
Anyway, here’s how regional news reported on his felonies. An unsurprising contrast to their reports on Darius Rucker Hootie’s misdemeanor arrest. Rucker allegedly had a lil bit of shrooms and, like, a weed pen on him.
Morgan has a couple mug shots, but he’ll have to kill at least 3 kittens and kick a dog before the white American press can decide if his crimes are worth running one, I guess.
Alt caption: The face of a man who knows his fanbase will shout “get over it!” and “mistakes happen!” at anyone who reminds them of his racism and crimes.
Boeing’s Burn Book Era — A bunch of men who make millions of dollars in salary to do jobs that they have not actually been doing, or doing well, or doing at all, are going to be paid millions of dollars to never do those jobs again.
Dave Calhoun, CEO — He's the man who famously said that the door popping off over Portland was simply a quality escape. You and I now know, of course, that door actually came from the factory without any bolts on it, and that the plane, which was only two months old, had decompression alarms going off since its first day in the air. Quality escape. He announced he’s retiring at the end of the year.
Stan Deal, CEO Commercial Airplanes — Gone effectively immediately.
Larry Kellner, Board Member — He announced that he's not going to run for board re-election. Goodbye, Larry.
Brian West, CFO — Mr. Question Mark. Brian hasn’t resigned just yet, but he should…for company culture. The only thing I know about him is that, instead of commuting into the office, he had Boeing build an office five minutes from his home in Connecticut.
Later, skanks (!).
#Campchella — The only Coachella content I’m consuming is camp and car haul content, simply because I love when the internet masses rebel against their deeply invested influencer overlords.
There are influencers posting years-old, kinda-sorta-looks-like Palm Springs-ish photos and pretending they’re there. Influencers who scored one single party invite and sat in 7 hours of roundtrip traffic because their plan to loiter around long enough to find a couch to crash on didn’t pan out. There are others teetering into unrecoverable credit card debt, hoping their self-funded VIP wristbands and mid century airbnbs pays off with major views (i’ll never go into debt for Coachella, no matter how good my #taxdaddy is).
None of them, I repeat, none of them are delivering content and views like the normies and solochella-istas serving realness from the trenchellas (ok I’ll stop):
“Hey Siri, Do solar eclipse glasses also work for nuclear bomb flash blindness?” Asking for a friend.